“Not much. Personal notes. Speculations.”

“About the case?”

“Some of it.”

“Did you report the break-in?”

“Of course not. Under the circumstances.”

“How did he get in?”

“Finessed the lock somehow.” Michelle smiled. “Don’t worry, I’ve had it changed. The locksmith assures me the place is as impregnable as a fortress now.”

“Anything else?”

“Maybe.”

“What does that mean?”

“Yesterday, as I was crossing the road near the Hazels estate, I was almost hit by a small van.”

“Almost?”

“Yes, no damage. I couldn’t be certain, but I thought it was deliberate.”

“Any idea who?”

“The number plate was obscured.”

“A guess?”

“Well, I hesitate to say it, but after the missing notebooks and actions, my mind can’t help but wander toward Shaw. Thing is, I can’t bring myself to believe it, that he would do something like that.”

Banks didn’t have much of a problem believing it. He’d known bent coppers before, and known them well enough to realize that they were capable of anything when cornered. Many coppers were also as skilled at picking locks as burglars were. But why did Shaw feel cornered? And what was it he’d done? Banks remembered the quiet young man with the freckles, ginger hair and sticking-out ears, rather than the bloated, red-nosed bully Shaw had become. “Shaw was teamed up with DI Proctor, right?”

“Reg Proctor, yes. He took early retirement in 1975 and then died of liver cancer in 1978. He was only forty-seven.”

“Any rumors, hints of scandal?”

Michelle sipped some wine and shook her head. “Not that I could uncover. Seems to have had an exemplary career.”

Banks asked Michelle’s permission and lit a cigarette. “Shaw and Proctor were the detectives who came to our house,” he said. “They were obviously interviewing friends of Graham’s and people on the estate. There would no doubt have been other teams assigned to other tasks, but for some reason, someone wanted rid of Shaw’s notes. Shaw, himself?”

“He was only a DC at the time,” said Michelle.

“Right. What could he have to hide? There must have been something in his notebooks that incriminated someone else. Maybe Harris or Proctor.”

“The notebooks could have been missing since Harris retired in 1985,” Michelle said. “They could also have been taken before Proctor’s death in 1978, I suppose.”

“But why? Nobody’s had reason to look at them for years. Graham had been missing since 1965. Why mess with the paperwork unless there was some compelling reason? And what could that be except that his body’s been found and the case is open again?”

“True enough,” said Michelle.

“The actions would show us how the investigation was managed,” Banks mused. “Most of them probably came from Jet Harris himself. They’d show the direction the investigation took, or didn’t take, the shape of it.”

“We keep getting back to this blinkered approach,” Michelle said. “DS Shaw even hinted they all knew Brady and Hindley did it.”

“That’s a load of bollocks,” said Banks.

“The timing’s right.”